Hacker News Reader

The cost of renewal will be 10% of the estimated value of the copyright to the rights holder for the next ten years

This alone would force many things that are actively being developed into the PD, because people won't have the funds on hand. Unless I misunderstand your proposal.

EDIT:

And, the impact of that would be that richer companies would swoop in and get free work. Sounds bad. Real bad.

Or only the rich can afford copyright. Or like you said, the rich can be the "patron" of poor artists and keep them on a leash.

Yeah this was my biggest concern actually, but I hadn't thought of a good way around it until now.

I suppose you could set it up so things that are still under development and not being sold (and hence the creators can't have extracted any value) don't need copyright protection and are instead treated like trade secrets.

Good point. What if we switched it around to being 10% of anything you made in the previous 10 years. Renewal for in development would then be free. And then maybe put a limit on the number of free renewals. So either commercialize it or release it after some number of years.

Lookup "Hollywood accounting" to see how well that will go.

For example, from the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting): According to Lucasfilm, Return of the Jedi, despite having earned $475 million at the box office against a budget of $32.5 million, "has never gone into profit"

Disney could renew the copyright on "Return of the Jedi" for pennies on the dollar.

It would be based on revenue not profit. Yes, they could be tricky, but the IRS manages to get them, I'm sure the copyright office could too.

> 4a. To keep the rights holder honest, after they submit their estimated value, any other person may buy the copyright from them for 110% of the estimated value within 90 days.

So if my copyright is legitimately worth $1000 (because I'm not a big company, I just wrote some eBook that sells 100 copies a year) someone can steal it from me for $1100?

More subtle; if you are willing to pay $1,000 for the renewal, then a company can buy it from you for $11,000. If you only make $100/year on it, then a company can buy it from you for $1,100, which is more than you would make in the next ten years from holding the copyright. I think the multiplier should be a little higher, or potentially you should get the right of first refusal -- if someone says "I want to steal it from you for $1,100" you can then name your price instead, and as long as you are willing to pay 10% of that price you basically get to override the attempt.

Also note that the initial copyright grant is free in this proposal; so you get 10 years of monopoly on distribution.

> Also note that the initial copyright grant is free in this proposal; so you get 10 years of monopoly on distribution.

Good point.

> If you only make $100/year on it, then a company can buy it from you for $1,100, which is more than you would make in the next ten years from holding the copyright. I

Sometimes these things are more sentimental then monetary.

Also, the way you word that, essentially it is a 10% tax on copyrighted work. Though the point about it being a 10 year monopoly is a fair one.

But doesn't this basically mean that if you only have $1,000 in your pocket, anyone with $11,000 can outbid you for your creations? You will not be able to name a price you can't literally pay right away.

Yes. I made a change above to rectify this and removed the "stealing" aspect from my proposal.

Yes, but presumably that's still a better deal than what you would have made from it yourself.

Creative works are often a labor of love not for the money.

Then why retain the copyright? Why not let others make derivative works and expand your love?

TV and Film industry would not like that at all. Average script to screen is 7-11 years (depending on whom you ask) and TV series are a model of geo locks with semi-perpetual licensing fees along with an added value for pushing new stuff (in packages with these, older, titles). That's the only way to make them profitable if they aren't hit series (most aren't). 10% of the estimated value where you can't make an estimate is ridiculous.

What if we switched it to being 10% of what you made in the last 10 years instead. And removed the purchasing copyright part, and instead kept it honest through auditing like tax returns?

The issue is with value. Here's just one example. Let's say you have a TV series from the 80's. Doesn't matter it's 80+ shows, it doesn't sell at all anymore. Value is, if you look at it that way - zero. However, you have new films which aren't all that hot, but TV networks and stations are interested to buy three year rights for their geography if you package that show (and several others) with it. How do you value that show then? As part of the package pricing (not gonna happen) or as zero value? It obviously has some value, but it's hard to price it. Especially with hardcore accounting at these companies.

Another example is development and development hell. Let's consider the same show. Its value is still zero on the books. It ain't sellin', yo! For years! However, there's a script and development for a movie based on it. Trouble is, it's been in development (money gathering, mostly) for the past seven or so years. Once the movie is made and has a venue run, maybe that old IP will be of some value again... or like in the case before, as a package or gratis with the movie. Who knows?

These are just trivial examples. TV business revolves around producing 'packages'. Be it a single show of 80+ shows or packages that offer the same or anything in between. It's easier to sell it that way, because time slots can then be populated during the season easily. No one wants to buy one of anything, unless it's Star Wars or anything of that calibre. By selling those packages to TV networks and stations, with rights anything between 1-5 years (one viewing + one re-run, or unlimited re-runs) and for their particular geographical location only, distributors and studios have a constant stream of revenue. They do various combinatorics with their portfolio in order to ensure constant stream. Without geo locks and without numbers (of shows), TV networks and stations won't buy, and they are A LOT better market than one or two providers like Netflix. That's also the reason why Netflix sucks outside of US and why they're moving towards their own production (Amazon also).

I think, and I may be wrong (but I am in that business), is first you have to break that revenue model. Once producers have another model to get revenue, then options will arise to get rid of stupidities around IP. One cannot look into other directions, like music business, since production costs are magnitudes higher and most TV and film stuff produced already calculate 10-20+ years of revenue down the stream. As it is now, once you produce 80+ of anything, it's guaranteed revenue (either for that or as an added bonus for something else) forever practically. How do you break that first? They will fight that aggressively.

Aside from all that, Lynda Obst talked about ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_oHW31jQfg ) how Netflix killed DVD market and how that cascaded into what we have now, considering quality and other stuff. Interesting interview, and all true, if you're interested in the problem space from TV and Film perspective.

I used to work at Netflix, so I have a deep understanding of how Hollywood makes money. :)

I also know that Netflix figured out how to put a value on pretty much any piece of content, and I'm sure the government could do it too.

If Netflix put a value on 'pretty much any piece of content' and they lack said content, that tells you something, right? It's not that value. If you were making deals for IP, then you very well know where and how these deals are made. Throwing away dozens, if not hundreds, of buyers for one or two and have them dictate the value is not that business, as evidenced by catalogue at Netflix. It's a dynamic system of sales with dozens of combinations and not even owners of IP can value them properly (apart from initial runs for certain movies).

I like this solution, especially 4a, since I'm a big fan of the Heinlein idea of taxes that represent an estimate of the expected value, with the market providing an enforcement mechanism. I think the multiplier needs to be larger, though, to make it possible to defend inconsequential copyrights. On the other hand, the first 10 years being free is probably enough that small-time content creators can't just be put out of business by Disney. Involuntary sale of the copyright is also problematic because voluntary sales often include things like artifacts of the creation of the work, and merchandising agreements have to be negotiated and transferred as well -- compelling companies to forfeit the work would be complicated by these factors.

We have to be careful, though, not to let the idea of a clever solution get in the way of defining the problem. What, fundamentally, is the societal benefit of expiring the copyright?

In my opinion, the main condition that a copyright holder has to satisfy is to make the work available at a reasonable price. Increasingly this is the problem, that copyright holders both make a work unavailable and continue to hold the copyright, preventing the access to the material in any form. I feel that this is the tradeoff that society makes in exchange for allowing the monopoly. Once the holder can no longer (or will no longer, or does no longer) distribute the material, then it should revert to the public domain, as the public interest is no longer served by that copyright.

The solution above lets holders keep copyright as long as they're making money off of it, but offers no societal benefit other than the money paid into the copyright renewal fund.

I envision it slightly differently:

10 years seems reasonable, however, some exception might be added, specifically scientific articles should be limited to 3 years max.

Copyrights may be licensed, but not transferred.

Copyright should not be up for extension and should immediately go to the public domain after the initial 10 years.

For works that are continuous, copyright is valid for 5 years from the last major update.

This is an interesting thought experiment but what would be the disadvantages off just letting it expire in 10 years and offering no renewal.

Disney would never go for it.

99.99999% of voters aren't on disney's board.

Yeah but that doesn't matter. Disney has a lot of lobbying power. That's why they keep getting copyright extensions passed.